Tick's lifelong fascination with Greek mythology and a career path treating Vietnam War veterans for post-traumatic stress disorder collided in a trip to Greece 14 years ago.

His epiphany occurred while watching a performance of Euripides' play, ``The Trojan Women,'' in an ancient amphitheater at Epidauros on the Peloponnesian peninsula.

Tick and his understanding of the human condition have not been the same since.

``That '87 trip was a transformational journey for me,'' says Tick, a psychotherapist and writer who lives in Albany. ``It made me look past the wounds of Vietnam to the eternal savagery of war. I began thinking about the universal pain of warriors throughout history and how I might begin to help with their healing.''

Tick blends scholarly research and personal experience in a new book, ``The Practice of Healing: Bringing Ancient Greek Mysteries into Modern Medicine'' (Quest Books; $34.95 hardcover; $18.95 paper). It was recently published by a division of the Theosophical Publishing House in Wheaton, Ill.

``Dr. Tick effectively reminds those of us who consider ourselves modern healers of the spiritual as well as rational roots of our calling,'' Simon D. Spivack, a research physician with the New York state health department and associate professor of pulmonary and critical care at Albany Medical College, writes in a book jacket blurb.

Tick takes his inspiration from the teachings of Plato, who suggested that the mind cures the body. But a sick mind can't cure anything and, therefore, making the mind healthy will cause a person's body to follow suit.

Joseph Campbell, the writer and philosopher, may have said it best: ``Healing is the leap out of suffering into myth.''

``The Practice of Healing'' includes lessons Tick has distilled from 10 trips he has led to Greece in the past six years. The trips last two to three weeks and usually include eight to 12 people. They offer immersion in Greek mythology and literature through Tick's lectures, as well as a focus on healing. Several participants have been Vietnam war veterans or others with psychic or physical wounds.

Tick suggests healing trips to Greece only as a supplement and not as a replacement to traditional medical treatment.

His book traces the historical record of healing sanctuaries of ancient Greece, holy sites encircling the Mediterranean Sea to which pilgrims would sojourn in search of relief from a variety of physical, mental and spiritual maladies.

Trained priests guided visitors through cleansing rituals including psychotherapy, hydrotherapy, rigorous exercise, healthy diet, theater, prayer and meditation. A sanctuary stay culminated in a dream session in which the healing god Asklepios or messenger would appear in a vision to prescribe a cure.

Greek scholars have published a 500-page testimony of translated writings of pilgrimages to Asklepios, a gentle god of healing who walked the Earth performing miracle cures, according to Greek mythology. Asklepios is said to have cured infertility, paralysis, blindness, kidney stones, bodily tumors, war injuries, intestinal parasites and other ailments.

The cures came about through the interpretation of holy men known as therapeutes (early ``therapists''), who analyzed patients' dreams and translated the advice of the god.

These temples to Asklepios were popular and widely attended for nearly a millennium, from about 600 B.C. to about 300 A.D., when they were destroyed under the Roman Empire.

Tick's work attempts to bridge the gap across centuries and cultures. The purpose of his book and goal of his psychotherapy practice - which goes by the name of Sanctuary: A Center for Mentoring the Soulis to infuse the methods of Asklepios and dream visions with the high-tech emphasis of the modern U.S. health care system.

Frustration compelled Tick to search for alternatives to the prevailing wisdom of the medical community particularly in treating Vietnam combat veterans suffering symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.

``The medical community said PTSD was a chronic, incurable lifetime disability and the vets had to learn to live with it,'' Tick says. ``I couldn't and wouldn't accept that as a psychotherapist. I needed a more profound form of therapy.

``In today's terms, the ancient Greek sanctuaries and temples to Asklepios were the ideal holistic health center,'' Tick says, noting their modern-day counterparts are the Esalen and Omega institutes.

Says Tick, ``A great deal of healing can occur when you move from individual and personal suffering into the universal experience of the pain of war and wounding.''

In addition to combat veterans, Tick has guided through healing dream rituals in Greece a leukemia patient, a person with a rare genetic blood disorder, a rape victim suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and people struggling with depression.

``The keystone of ancient healing is a dream encounter with the god,'' Tick says. ``It's analogous to the Native American sweat lodge and vispin quest. They're simply ways of trying to touch a divine soul to bring about healing.''

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